1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to automatic identification systems, methods and program products. More particularly, the invention relates to an RFID system with packetized data storage in a mobile environment: methods, systems and program products.
2. Description of Prior Art
Mobile communication devices, typically cell phones, laptops and other portable devices are active with cellular wireless or short-range wireless systems. Cellular systems require service areas to be arranged into cells, which have their own transmitter and receiver base stations. In each cell a group of frequencies are used by the mobile devices for communication with other devices and external networks via the base station. Cellular systems have ranges in the order of kilometers. The frequency bands and other parameters for cellular systems are described in the text “Cellular Radio Principles and Design”, by R. C. V. Macario, published by McGraw-Hill, NY, N.Y., 1993 (ISBN: 0-07-044301-7) at page 210.
Short-range wireless systems operating with mobile communication devices operate in the unlicensed portion of the radio spectrum, usually either in a 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) Band or the 5.0 GHz Unlicensed-National Information Infrastructure (UINII) Band, and have a typical range of one hundred meters or less. Short-range wireless systems can be combined with systems wired to the Internet to provide communication over long distances via an access point. A description of short-range wireless systems is described in the text, “802.11 Wireless Networks as the Definitive Guide”, by Matthew S. Gast, published by O'Reilly, Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, Calif. (ISBN: 0-596-001883-5), 2002, Chapter II.
Short-range wireless communications systems find use in automatic identification systems (AIS). Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems are one embodiment of AIS which find use in short-range wireless communication system. The typical RFID system includes a RFID reader and a RFID transponder linked together by a radio frequency generated by the reader. The transponder is attached or coupled to an item for identification purposes. RFID systems are described in the text “RFID Handbook—Radio-Frequency Identification Fundamentals and Applications” by K. Finkenzeller, published by John Wiley & Sons LTD, New York, N.Y. (ISBN 0-471-98851 0) 1999, pages 6-7, and fully incorporated herein by reference.
In one embodiment, the reader may be incorporated into a mobile device which communicates with the RFID transponder via a radio frequency signal. The reader sends out a RF signal that “wakes up” the RFID transponder. The transponder may be active or passive. In response to the RF signal, the transponder transmits a data signal back to the reader via a RF frequency signal. The transponder or “tag” includes a memory and is incorporated into an item. The tag stores data descriptive of the item for identification purposes. An exemplary tag information block is described in related application, Ser. No. 10/180,267, filed Jun. 26, 2002, supra, beginning at page 24, line 18, and shown in FIG. 5. The memory may be random access or read only or erasable read only memory and the like. Data is stored in the memory in a customized data structure and format, according to the requirements of an application executable in the mobile devices or in an external network. Most RFID applications define an entire vertical structure from the format of the bits of the RFID tag to the top-level application behavior. Each time a new application is created, the data structure and format of the tag must be customized to meet the requirements of the new application. Re-creating the data structure and format for new applications is expensive and time consuming. Moreover, the customized data structure and format limits processing of the tag data for the application executing in the mobile device and can impede off-loading the tag data to other external data processing system. What is needed in the art is a RFID system in a mobile environment having a data structure and format for tag information which facilitates (a) creating new applications or changes to existing applications executable in the mobile device or another environment with minimum effort; (b) reading or writing tag data between the tag and the mobile device or an external network, and (c) allowing external applications to be transferred to the RFID environment with no or little modification.
Prior art related to the present invention includes the following:
A. U.S. Pat. No. 6,398,105B2 entitled “Automatic Data Collection Device That Intelligently Switches Data Based On Data Type”, issued Jun. 4, 2002 discloses intelligently routing data received from an automatic data collection (“ADC”) device in an ADC device platform based on its type. A data routing mechanism operates on the data-receiving side of an ADC data server. After identifying the characteristics of the input data, the data routing mechanism determines the destination for the data based on the characteristics then routes the data to the selected destination. For some types of data, the selected destination may be an intermediate destination where the data undergoes additional processing before being transmitted to another location, while for other types of data the selected destination may be the application that ultimately processes the data. For example, the data routing mechanism may receive a set of input data, analyze the data to determine that the data is voice data, and then route the data to a speech recognition module that processes voice data. ADC devices accommodated by the system include bar code readers, speech recognition systems, RF tag readers, resonator readers, and two-dimensional symbol readers optical character recognition (“OCR”) systems. The invention finds application within a network of ADC device platforms that receive requests for input data from both local and remote applications. Data may be communicated to remote users using any data protocol, including the Transmission Control Protocol (“TCP”), the User Datagram/Internet Protocol (“UDP/IP”) or the User Datagram Plus Protocol (“UDP+”).
B. U.S. Pat. No. 6,150,921 entitled “Article Tracking System”, issued Nov. 21, 2000 discloses tracking mobile tags. Cell controllers with multiple antenna modules generate a carrier signal which is received by the tags. Tags shift the frequency of the carrier signal, modulate an identification code onto it, and transmit the resulting tag signal at randomized intervals. The antennas receive and process the response, and determine the presence of the tags by proximity and triangulation. Distance of a tag from an antenna is calculated by measuring the round trip signal time. The cell controllers send data from the antenna to a host computer. The host computer collects the data and resolves them into positional estimates. Data are archived in a data warehouse, such as an SQL Server. The tag datagram may contain a header to enable the cell controller to detect the tag's presence, an identifier preamble, which may be implemented, for example, as a validity check such as a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), the tag's UID and optional data sections, which can include data from within the tag.
C. U.S. Pat. No. 6,448,979 entitled “Printed medium activated interactive communication of multimedia information, including advertising” discloses communicating multimedia information using a scanner for machine-readable code containing a link information corresponding to a provider information depicted on the printed medium. A user interface obtains user input information corresponding to the provider information. A communications bridge sends the link information and the user input information via the network. A receiver in communication with the scanner, capable of receiving the link information and user input information, and further capable of receiving and playing a multimedia information sequence. A portal server in communication with the scanner via the network capable of selecting a multimedia information sequence corresponding to the link information and the user input information.
None of the prior art discloses or suggests an RFID system in a mobile environment which satisfies the needs of the art for creating new application with minimum effort by using a packetized and preferably standardized data structure and format which facilitates reading and writing data to a tag and enables external application data to be communicated within the RFID environment.